Richard Garriott: Open development and crowdsourcing is a ‘joy’

There’s a lot of debate and discussion these days as to the virtues and usefulness of early access and transparent development, but at least for Richard Garriott and his team, it’s been a “joy” to experience.

Garriott spoke with the Escapist about how both crowd sourcing and open development has benefited Shroud of the Avatar greatly thus far: “Now we know, as soon as we have a half-baked idea going in, just what people think of it. Players can weigh in and help guide the creation we are making for them. [It] also let them know where we might need help. The crowd sourcing of everything from music, to art, to even code has grown out of this foundation.”

Caec A non-profit MMO company. Now *that* would be interesting to see.

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4 years ago

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BigMikeyOcho

PaganRites Gylnne It could be limitations with the engine, but also in their original ideas for the game, it was to make the world a lot more “modular”. These “scenes” can be added, removed, and overall changed without affecting the overall game world. So game modifications and changes would be a lot easier for the servers to handle, it seemed an easier way to build and deliver the content.

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4 years ago

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PaganRites

You basically hit an invisible wall and instance into the next part of he map. I used the word rooms to describe it, but it’s not that obvious. I just wish the areas were much larger before you had to instance to another section.

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4 years ago

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Zennie

PaganRites Gylnne Hold on, this is interesting. How exactly are those “rooms” connected and / or separated?

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4 years ago

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Detton

It’s a playable game and an enjoyable experience for what it is. If you make the jump to pay for early access, I feel the game provides $40 worth of entertainment as it is.

At the moment, I am on hold – I’m waiting for more content to come in (i really want them to flesh out the magic system more), but I didn’t stop due to a dislike of the game.

I feel the same about The Repopulation as well.

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4 years ago

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Gylnne

PaganRites Gylnne Ah I see, thank you for the info.:)

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4 years ago

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Gylnne

SallyBowls1 Gylnne I understand that Sally but to me spending more does not equal a better game. For the most part it gives studio’s the money to live a lavish lifestyle while they make a mediocre product. Mark Jacobs made Dark Age of Camelot for pennies compared to MMO’s today and ended up with decent graphics for the time. I just don’t buy the line to make a great looking game you have to spend millions.:)

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4 years ago

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UtopianWarrior

ArtemisiaWS At least they seem to be actually working on the game, rather than selling more and more, well, promises. Until they would reach, like, one hundred million USD (just a random number, no reference to anyone in particular)… even if it means delaying the actual game by say, two years. :P

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4 years ago

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phillbatchelor

I just backed shroud about a week ago. So far I can say, The community is great, and the game is looking to be the same!

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4 years ago

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CromulentWord

SallyBowls1 Gylnne The success of crowdfunded single player RPGs like Divinity: Original Sin and Wasteland 2 prove that PC gamers are willing to sacrifice next gen graphics for otherwise great games. They don’t need to sacrifice features or scope. D:OS and W2 were larger and more feature-rich than most AAA releases, and cost perhaps 5% as much to make.